


you're a possum living in the trashcan of my heart (you're a possum in my heart)

by gendernoncompliant



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Hijinks & Shenanigans, Intercrural Sex, Light Dom/sub, Light Power Play, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Prompt Fill, Road Trips, duke is also a brat tbh but we don't have time to unpack all that, idiots to lovers, season 5, seth is a brat and that's just canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:21:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25684204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant
Summary: Seth’s really starting to rub off on him. Not in the fun way, either.Christ.
Relationships: Seth Byrne/Duke Crocker
Comments: 15
Kudos: 12





	you're a possum living in the trashcan of my heart (you're a possum in my heart)

**Author's Note:**

> *Title from the song "I Hope I Don't Fuck This Up" by Dollar Signs, which is the most chaotic love song I've ever heard and absolutely suits them. [I know that it should have been spelled opossum, but "a opossum" looked really strange and I decided to nix the 'o' in favor of my peace of mind lmao]  
> This fic is wildly self indulgent, I hope you like it <3

After several consecutive days driving around in the Mystery Machine, Duke has learned three valuable pieces of information:

1) If you so much as nudge the van past 51 miles per hour, it makes a godawful sputtering, grinding noise.

2) Seth never met an awkward silence he didn’t have at least three hundred pre-loaded conversation starters for. And:

3) Duke actually kind of likes it when Seth babbles.

Seth is, in many ways, the worst possible ASMR. But—weirdly? Kind of soothing, in a drone-y, nerd encyclopedia way. It doesn’t put Duke to sleep, but it calms him down. Seth’s mania is a few degrees different from his own, which means they don’t seem to feed into each other’s moods so much as balance them.

Duke buries anxiety under a few layers of pretend; he internalizes and internalizes and lets the excess energy leak out in smaller, subtler ways—how he talks with his hands, how he can’t quite sit still, how he’ll focus in on something with a lightning intensity.

But Seth? Seth externalizes _everything_ : every wayward thought, every passing musing, every piece of nonsense trivia with even a whisper of relevancy.

And it’s—nice.

It’s nice to think about something other than fate and legacies and destinies. It’s a relief to just let Seth do the thinking for him, for a while.

It’s a nice change from Nathan, who never met a feeling he didn’t repress (Duke’s only chatty by Wuornos standards). And Audrey, whose on-the-job tunnel vision has no parallel.

Duke might not exactly call Seth a “big picture” kind of guy but, at the very least, the man can multitask.

When they first started this little venture, Duke knuckled down and braced himself for the impending 24/7 _Darkside Seekers_ bullshit. But it turns out, Seth’s ghost enthusiast, motormouth schtick never really lost its charm. On day three of what definitely should have only been a two-day road trip, Duke miraculously hasn’t gotten sick of him yet.

The real problem is the van.

It’s loud. It’s slow. It’s bumpy. It smells like a retirement home. The first and only time Duke asked about the smell, he was treated to a rambling, “Well, that’s probably because some of the equipment is preeetty antique. Y’know, it’s actually really interesting—” Only to spend the next forty minutes learning all the details of the historical and cultural origins of the EMF meter. Which was—

Well, actually it was pretty fascinating stuff.

(“You wanna talk about antiques?” Duke had joked during one of Seth’s many essays about his equipment, “I _drive_ one, and it’s in better shape than this hunk of junk.” He’d rapped his knuckles against the dashboard for emphasis and Seth had both laughed and called him a dick. He grinned all the way to the next mile marker.)

Despite being roughly the size of a boat, the damn van was apparently designed for hobbits. Duke’s spent three days with his knees practically folded into his chest, sitting in a seat he can’t push back thanks to the rest of the thing being chockablock full of paranormal ghost thermometers or whatever the hell Seth’s got back there. (Whatever they are, they aren’t bolted down, and more than once Duke’s been treated to the horrible, moments-before-disaster sound of them scraping across the floor at too sharp of a turn. Several of them also _beep_ at constant and nonsensical intervals—a sound Seth doesn’t seem to notice at all).

He’s afforded a _little_ more leg room whenever Seth lets him drive, but then he has to actually drive the thing.

“Your brakes really shouldn’t do this,” Duke comments at one point, noting the unusual amount of _give_ in the pedal before the brake actually engages and starts to slow the van.

“They still work,” Seth dismisses in that singsongy way of his. “Just gotta find the sweet spot.”

Duke rolls his eyes. In his semi-professional, expert-adjacent opinion, Seth is _technically_ right.

In his common sense, worst-case-scenario opinion:

“We’re driving to North Carolina in a death trap.”

Seth—tucked into the corner of the passenger seat like he’s got all the leg room in the world—shoots him an unimpressed look. “Excuse me, have you _seen_ your boat? Pot, meet kettle.”

Duke forgoes his instinct to defend to Rouge to ask, instead, an amused, “And why am I pot?”

“Holds more water,” Seth declares. He stretches in the seat—which frankly has to be a purposeful jab—and adds a smug, “Just like your boat.”

“Alright, watch it,” Duke mumbles, more charmed than insulted. He refuses to admit that Seth has a point, but he can’t quite manage to wipe the grin off his face.

Duke still hates the van. But he’s really starting to get a little in over his head when it comes to Seth, himself. He catches himself being stupid and transparent—sneaking looks that last too long, laughing at jokes that really aren’t that funny.

It’s nice to have another decent sense of humor around. Nathan’s, for one, packed its boxes and ran ages ago. Dwight’s funny, but in a sharp, backhanded, kill-em-with-kindness sort of way. And Audrey—well. She’s got a lot on her mind, these days.

Around hour three of today’s little excursion, Duke finally gives up on road safety and props his feet up on the dash.

Seth shoots him a couple sideways glances. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Duke leans back in his seat, reveling in the ability to stretch. “I can’t sit like that anymore,” he sighs. With a shrug, he adds a breezy, “If we crash, we crash.”

Which is around the time smoke starts billowing out from under the hood.

Duke shoots Seth a frustrated look and folds himself back into the seat. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”

“Hey, buddy, it’s my car,” Seth warns as he clicks on his hazards.

“You’re right,” Duke agrees, chipper as anything, “ _Nice_ definitely isn’t the right word.”

“Fuck you, dude,” Seth puffs, but there’s an undercurrent of laughter underneath it. The fact that he doesn’t seem at all spooked by the smoke gives Duke the impression that this—or something like this—has definitely happened before.

They find themselves pulled over on the side of highway 95.

Duke takes one look at the smoking mess under the hood and shrugs out of his button down, tossing it gracefully into Seth’s face with a soft thump.

“ _Dude_ ,” is the only actual complaint he gets.

Duke ignores it. He waves away the last belch of smoke and pokes around for the problem. Duke’s handy, but he’s not a mechanic, and his expertise lies more with British manufacturers. He can keep his Rover purring like a kitten, but this?

“Yeah, I can’t fix this.” He straightens up, wiping his brow with the back of his arm and shaking his head. He drags black handprints along the front of his undershirt. It was cheap; no great loss. “Pretty sure you’re gonna need a whole new engine.”

Seth stands just to the side of him, Duke’s button down bundled in his hands, his expression unfocused. Duke knocks his boot against Seth’s ankle, casting him a fond, if exasperated, look. “Hey, you in there?”

Seth seems to startle to attention. “You, uh—” Seth gestures to his forehead. “Got a little something.”

Duke lifts the neckline of his tank top to wipe his brow and comes away with a dark band of motor oil along the collar. Seth glances very suddenly away.

Settling back on his heels with something a little bit smug blooming in his chest, Duke refocuses the conversation. “Coolant tank’s seen better days, too. How long’s it been leaking?”

Whatever spell had fallen over Seth disappears in a snap. “It’s leaking?!” He squeaks, rushing over to look.

“Great.” Duke rolls his eyes. He shoos Seth back out of the way and drops the hood. “It’s a miracle this thing drives at all.”

Driving even further under the speed limit than usual, they manage to putter the literal smoking wreck of a van into the parking lot of the closest auto shop barely half an hour before close. The person manning the front desk peers skeptically around their shoulders to glance at the silhouette of the van through the window behind them. They take down Seth’s information and promise to give him a call in the morning once the problem’s been diagnosed.

The two of them wind up hoofing it to the nearest motel—which, thankfully, isn’t too horribly far.

Duke likes to think himself a patient man. Turns out that hiking damn near an hour in the wind and the cold tests the boundaries of that patience. The two of them bicker in circles about how often Seth should be getting his car serviced, fall into a few precious minutes of quiet, and then Seth remembers some counterpoint he missed the first go-around and they’re at it again.

Between the cold and the grease and the uncomfortable prickle of irritation, Duke is practically daydreaming about a hot shower by the time the neon haze of the vacancy sign comes into view.

He clings to the dream of the hot shower through the dull process of checking in. When Seth drops his duffle onto one of the lumpy double beds, Duke’s already digging through his own for a pair of sweatpants to change into.

Holding onto his grudge just a little longer, Duke disappears into the bathroom.

Duke likes the guy, he does. But thanks to Seth’s chronic amnesia, they can’t get so much as two rooms apart without Duke having to give the Haven pitch all over again. He joked yesterday that taking a piss was the only two minutes of quiet he got all day.

Funny thing is, the longer Duke spends with Seth, the less he misses the quiet. Turns out Seth’s really starting to rub off on him. And not in the fun way, either.

Christ.

The shower turns out to be a mixed bag. The water pressure could best be described as a few degrees shy of pitiful. But the water is blessedly, beautifully _hot_. It steams the mirror and pinks his skin. After the chill of their walk, the water thaws him out down to the bone and he feels loose and relaxed and human again.

He steps out of the shower much less frustrated with Seth than when he stepped into it.

Still damp, the sweatpants cling a little to his legs, but it doesn’t bother him. Stepping out of the cramped bathroom and toweling off his hair, he finds Seth leaned up against the motel desk, scrolling through his phone.

Duke isn’t above taking a moment to appreciate the view. Seth, on the other hand, hasn’t looked up yet. A fact which shouldn’t bother Duke nearly as much as it does.

“God, this repair’s gonna cost me a fortune, huh?” Seth sighs, resigned.

Duke drops down onto the edge of a bed and drapes the towel over his shoulders with a shrug. “Depends on your insurance.”

“Ah,” Seth hums, “About that.”

Laughter bubbles from Duke’s mouth. His irritation, apparently, swirled down the drain with the motor oil. “You’re driving _that_ bucket of bolts without car insurance?” He clucks in mock disappointment, shaking his head.

“What are you gonna do?” Seth taunts playfully. “Call the cops?” He rests his hands flat on the table behind him, and it stretches the shirt across his chest in a way that Duke has to make a concentrated effort not to stare at. (An interesting line to draw in the sand from a man who not-so-accidentally walked out of the bathroom completely shirtless in the hopes of being stared at.)

Duke casts a surprised grin at the floor and concedes, “Honestly? I’m a little impressed. Didn’t know you had it you.”

Seth puffs up like a peacock. Foolhardy confidence turns out to be an infuriatingly good look on him. “Plates are expired, too,” he adds—eager, like he’s chasing that approval.

Duke notices. It makes his heart bang a little louder in his chest. Possibility hangs heavy in the air, thicker than the steam that fogged the mirror.

Humming in intrigued approval, Duke notes, “Expired plates. No insurance. No wonder we’re taking the scenic route.”

“Yeah,” Seth confirms. He doesn’t move from his spot, but his gaze lingers on Duke’s chest long enough that Duke knows it wasn’t intended to be subtle. “So, if you could maybe exercise a little, you know, discretion on the matter, I’d appreciate it.”

Duke has Seth’s attention. Seth can pretend otherwise; can feign interest in his phone or the sparse decor or the light peeking in around the edges of the curtain. But his focus always loops back to Duke.

“Discretion?” Duke echoes, teasing. He braces his hands behind him on the bed, leaning back in a way that’s at once relaxed and posed. “Seth. Come on. Look at who you’re dealing with.”

The intensity of Seth’s stare breaks on a disbelieving laugh. “Oh yeah,” he agrees, wandering a few steps closer—spanning the space between them. “You know, that _is_ the first thing I noticed about you: how well you _avoid_ cops.”

Touché.

This close, from his place on the edge of the bed, Duke almost has to tip his head back to hold eye contact.

“Maybe I’m just keeping my friends close and my enemies closer,” Duke jokes, his voice warm and focused.

Seth rolls his eyes and puffs another skeptical laugh. “Keep telling yourself that,” he teases. “I’ve seen how you look at them.”

Duke catches him by the hem of his shirt and drags him closer. Seth doesn’t startle so much as draw in a sharp breath that he forgets to let go. Duke pulls Seth into the space between his knees, expression calm and curious as he stares up at him.

“And how do I look at them?” Duke murmurs. The words barely count as a whisper—all heat and breath.

Even in the dim, yellow light, Seth looks flushed. Unfocused. Every time he tries to look Duke in the eyes, his gaze drops back to Duke’s mouth.

“Like that.”

All Duke has to do is tip his head back and Seth gravitates closer in a way that’s breathless and magnetic. The space between them becomes, suddenly, impossibly small. It isn’t a kiss, not yet, but he can feel Seth’s mouth against his when he purrs a teasing, “You’re not jealous, are you?”

For all the breathless shiver of Seth’s body, there’s a shocking, heady confidence about him when he counters, “Jealous of who?” His hands find Duke’s, still tangled in the front of his shirt, and drag them higher on his body. “I’m the only one here.”

Duke doesn’t know who moves first. All he knows is that his hands close around Seth’s waist and then they’re kissing. Seth is hurried and needy and _noisy_. He gasps against Duke’s mouth, yanks the towel from around his neck and throws it to the floor. He shifts forward, almost certainly with the intention of crawling into Duke’s lap, but Duke holds him firmly in place.

Seth pushes against him, the kiss gone frantic, finally breaking it with a frustrated sound when Duke refuses to let him any closer.

“Somebody’s eager,” Duke teases, dragging his mouth down the line of Seth’s jaw and reveling in the scratch of stubble against his lips.

Seth’s laugh comes out pinched and breathy. “Fuck off,” he moans. He tips his head back as Duke undoes his belt. “It’s been a while, okay? Give a guy a break.”

Duke’s tempted to ask questions; Seth’s chatty, and Duke’s curious just what it would take to get him tongue-tied. “Long enough you been thinking about it?” He asks. Grinning up at Seth, he adds a playful, “Thinking about me?”

Seth doesn’t react at all like he expects. He doesn’t clam up and he doesn’t go red. He huffs a soft little sound that might be a laugh and answers, “Uh, duh. I mean, look at you. Have you seen you?” He pulls back a little—enough that Duke can see the gleam in his eyes when he jokes, “You _do_ show up in mirrors, right?”

Duke rolls his eyes, but he can’t wipe the smile off his face. “Why? You worried about getting bitten?”

“I don’t know if I’d say _worried_ ,” Seth hums, shifting impatiently under Duke’s still hands. He reaches between them, snapping the waistband of Duke’s sweatpants when he groans, “If you’re gonna be a tease, can you at least be a naked tease?”

Duke laughs. “Should’ve known you’d be a brat.”

Seth can’t stand still. He pushes into the suggestion of Duke’s hands. “I’m not gonna beg,” Seth warns, but it’s awfully close to a whine.

Duke reaches between his legs and drags him closer, reveling in the way it makes Seth gasp and arch. “You don’t have to beg,” Duke murmurs as he palms Seth through his jeans. The hard line of his cock stands out underneath the denim, and Seth grinds almost helplessly into his grip.

He tangles his hands in Duke’s hair and rocks into his touch. “Do you always go this slow?” Seth baits, but Duke knows better than to rise to it. Of the two of them, he knows damn well he’s the patient one.

Seth isn’t even thinking when he yanks on Duke’s hair. It feels less intentional and more instinctual. But Seth gets a hold of the hair at the back of his skull and _pulls_ and for a second, Duke’s head fizzes into static. He forgets who’s in charge, forgets the game. For just a fraction of a second, he’d do anything—anything at all—to make Seth do it again.

He remembers himself, but not fast enough to stop the moan that escapes his lips. Seth laughs—a bright, smug little sound.

“So, you do have weaknesses,” Seth chuckles up against the seam of his lips.

Duke does nothing to hide his grin. “Mm, and if you’re very good,” he teases, “you might get to see more of them.”

Duke nudges Seth back far enough that he can get to his feet. He watches Seth track the movement, head tipping back until he stands at his full height.

“Fuck, I forgot how tall you are,” Seth mumbles, a vacant, dumbstruck look on his face.

Duke maybe pushes in a little closer just for the smug thrill of forcing him to tip his head back even further to hold eye contact.

“Good reminder?” He chuckles. Seth fractures on a moan and Duke makes the mistake of thinking he’s actually rendered him speechless, for once. (The quiet doesn’t last.)

Seth’s more than a head shorter than him; he’d blow away in a stiff breeze. It’s easy to take him by the waist and lift him off his feet. Seth’s legs wind around his hips on instinct, but the breathless _oh_ that puffs past Seth’s lips proves him off balance. When Duke drops him onto his back on the mattress, Seth bubbles into a wild laugh.

“Okay,” he admits, flushed and panting when he stares up at Duke, “that’s hot.”

“Seth,” Duke murmurs on a grin. He tugs Seth’s jeans down his hips and off, dragging Seth a few more inches down the bed in the process. “ _Shut up_.”

“Yep,” Seth agrees, eyes dark and unfocused. “Aye-aye. Uh-huh. Definitely. What were we talking about?”

Duke settles between Seth’s thighs, his stillness a juxtaposition to the restless rut and shift of Seth’s hips. He reacts to the lightest suggestion of touch, arching up towards more.

“Hold still,” Duke tells him—but it’s less an order than a tease. He punctuates the words by running his tongue up the inside of Seth’s thigh and revels in the way it makes him squirm. Duke almost drags it out, almost reconsiders his promise that he wouldn’t make Seth beg.

But maybe he isn’t as patient as he’d like to pretend to be, either.

He doesn’t even pull Seth’s boxers off, just tugs Seth out of them—hard and heavy and slick at the head. The arousal that once sat distant and unurgent at the back of his mind spikes sudden and intense, its own kind of vertigo. All at once he _wants_. He surges forward without thought, without pretense, to drag his tongue up the underside of Seth’s cock.

Seth’s hands find his hair. A dangerous place for them to settle. Duke doesn’t think too well when Seth starts to pull. But he isn’t all too worried about thinking, right now, anyway.

Seth only stutters a little when he sighs a half-wounded, “You look good like this.”

It snaps Duke out of his haze, just a little bit.

It’s hot, the way Seth says it, even if Duke’s too focused on keeping the upper hand to admit it.

Duke puffs out a sound that lands halfway between a moan and a laugh. He drags his lips along the head, teasing the idea of taking Seth deeper; something smug and hot blooms in his chest when Seth rocks helplessly towards his mouth, brushing up against his cheek.

“I thought I didn’t have to beg,” Seth whines, abandoning any pretense of composure.

Duke blinks innocently up at him, his lips ghosting Seth’s skin. “You don’t _have_ to do anything,” he purrs.

Throwing his head back against the pillow with a thump, Seth chuckles a frustrated groan. His heels slip in the sheets on either side of Duke.

“Please,” he sighs—the word soft and voiceless as a prayer.

Duke concedes, sinking down onto him with a moan that gets lost in the motion. Only the weight of his hands on Seth’s hips stops him from bucking into the sudden heat. Seth curses, breathy and bitten off, and tightens his grip on Duke’s hair.

Blinking up at Seth through his lashes, he can’t help but admire the bowed line of his body, the pink flush crawling down his chest, the softness of him. Duke moans around the cock in his mouth—which earns a few frantic yanks of his hair—and lifts off with a wet pop and a gasp.

He’s bright and smug, voice rough when he echoes a heated, “You look good like this,” in return.

Duke drags his mouth up the length of him while he catches his breath, unable to resist the impulse to grind down against the mattress and barely managing to contain his own gasp.

“You want me to touch you,” Seth groans, altogether too coherent and sure for Duke’s liking.

He squeezes Seth’s cock just a little too hard and murmurs, “We aren’t talking about me.”

It doesn’t so much as slow Seth down. There’s something unbearably earnest to his tone when he tugs Duke’s head back by the hair and sighs a quiet, needy. “Okay. I want to touch you.”

Duke shivers in spite of himself. He ruts a little helplessly against the bed and Seth tugs as if to lead him up by the hair.

It works.

Almost humiliatingly, Seth pulls his hair and Duke crawls forward with a weak little moan.

“Why are you still in pants?” Seth complains once they’re face to face, Duke braced above him. The frustration melts into a moan when he sneaks his hands past the waistline of Duke’s sweatpants and finds nothing but bare skin underneath. “Oh, okay,” he moans, squeezing Duke’s ass.

Duke stumbles through a groan as he grinds them together. “You talk too much,” he sighs, no real heat behind the accusation.

Seth practically beams up at him, his expression caught between delighted and wanton, his grin hanging crooked on his face. “Maybe you should give me a reason to shut up.”

Duke feels a shiver run up his back at the challenge. He runs his fingers along the seam of Seth’s lips before pushing two of them into his open mouth.

To his credit, Seth takes to the new task with enthusiasm.

Duke moans.

Sensations start blurring together. Seth’s mouth is hot and warm around his fingers, his legs tight around Duke’s waist, the both of them dissolved into nothing but hurried breath as they roll their hips just out of sync. The tease of friction through the cotton of his sweatpants walks the line between maddening and perfect.

He pulls his fingers free of Seth’s mouth, delighted by the needy, unfocused way Seth chases them, like he can’t bear to let them go. The keen look in his eyes has blurred out into something incoherent, like his sharp wit wound up buried under a few too many layers of heat and want.

Seth reaches out with a clumsy hand to catch the waistband of Duke’s pants as he starts to pull away.

“Where are you going?” Seth groans—whines, really, his voice thin and reedy.

“Got a better idea,” Duke tells him as he disappears long enough to dig through his duffle.

Seth stares dazedly up at the ceiling, his limbs starfished out uselessly. (His cock hard and pretty and pink on his stomach.) After a moment of waiting in the breathless quiet, Seth props himself up on his elbows to watch Duke with some mix of curiosity and frustration.

“Care to share with the class?” He asks.

Duke finds the small packet of lube he was looking for. Not that he’d exactly packed with something like this in mind, but a guy likes to be prepared and—well, honestly, he thought he’d be using it for himself for a little personal time. He’s grateful that the opportunity never arose to waste it.

Duke drops his sweatpants to the floor and Seth makes a noise that’s goddamn obscene.

“Fucking hell, Duke,” Seth groans. “You just—you just _look_ like that?”

A smug grin plays across Duke’s face. “I’m guessing that’s a compliment?” He asks, even though he knows the answer.

“Shut up and come here,” Seth says, levering himself upright so he can reach for Duke’s wrist. Duke catches him with a palm in the center of his chest and shoves him right back down onto the mattress.

Judging by the starstruck look in his eyes, Duke would wager he’s onto something with the manhandling.

“Legs, up,” Duke says simply.

Seth looks just a little bit entranced. He obeys more quickly than Duke thinks he means to—unabashedly eager and bordering on hypnotized, unable to break Duke’s gaze. He bends his knees, unsure of where to put them.

“Uh, up—where?” Seth mumbles.

Duke answers by lifting Seth’s legs over his left shoulder. It drags a noise out of Seth somewhere between a gasp and a squeak.

“Press your thighs together,” Duke instructs calmly, his voice low and even. Seth’s whole body relaxes on a moan.

“Fuck, yeah okay,” Seth groans.

Duke slicks himself with the lube before wrapping his arms around Seth’s thighs and pushing between them with a reedy sigh. He doesn’t take his time. They’ve taken too much time already. He presses his cheek against Seth’s calf and rocks forward needy and hurried.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Seth whines, only to dissolve into weak laughter. “That’s—that’s really hot, fuck.”

Duke chuckles against his skin, shaking his head with a smile. He grips Seth’s thighs tighter, muffling a moan against the bend of his knee. He doesn’t mean to close his eyes, but he gets caught up in it—gasping against Seth’s skin while he rolls his hips forward, into the pressure between his thighs.

When he opens his eyes again, he stumbles out a curse and stutters his rhythm. Seth’s gone pink all the way down his chest, his fingers wrapped around his own cock as he strokes in time with Duke’s thrusts. Seth watches him in a shameless, hungry way that makes his breath catch.

“Next time,” Seth pants—and it isn’t a question or a hopeful maybe. It borders on an order and Duke would be lying if he tried to pretend it didn’t send a shiver up his spine. “Next time, you’re gonna fuck me.”

Whatever Duke was going to say gets lost. He pistons forward, muffling a high, ragged gasp against Seth’s calf and gripping his thighs tight when he comes across Seth’s knuckles and stomach. Seth moans louder than he does, arching up and stroking fast and frantic until he follows suit.

Duke doesn’t move for a moment. Seth makes for an awfully pretty picture—filthy and fucked out and flushed.

“Admiring the view?” Seth drawls, his voice colored with a tired smile. He groans in protest when Duke shifts his legs, but changes his tune when it means Duke’s fitted between them, on top of him, cradling his face to guide him into a kiss.

Seth showers and Duke stays sprawled out on the bed—face down with his arms around the pillow—idly wondering if he ought to put clothes on. But when Seth returns from the bathroom, he flops down beside Duke without pretense. Duke hides a grin in the crook of his elbow.

“Sooo,” Seth singsongs. He stares up at the ceiling in some failed attempt to be casual about the whole thing. “How weird is this gonna be, tomorrow?”

“Seth,” Duke sighs placatingly. “You are the weirdest person I know.” He reaches out to tug on Seth’s damp hair. “Tomorrow? Drop in the bucket compared to the weird-on-wheels you’re driving us to North Carolina in.”

Seth sits bolt upright with a scandalized gasp. “Rude! She has a name.”

Rolling onto his back, Duke grins. “Oh yeah? And what is it.”

After a suspiciously long pause, Seth offers, “Myrtle.”

“You came up with that on the spot.” He traces meaningless patterns across the small of Seth’s back, just because he can.

“I did _not_ come up with it on the spot,” Seth argues, but he leans into the touch. “And it’s a very dignified, storied name.”

Duke snorts. “It’s an old lady name.”

“Yeah, well, she’s an old lady!”

“She certainly smells like one,” Duke teases.

All at once, he has a lap full of Seth Byrne. “You take that back!” Seth demands, but Duke just laughs and drags him down into a kiss.

“Looks like you’re gonna have to make me,” Duke hums against his mouth.

To Seth’s credit, he takes to the challenge with enthusiasm.


End file.
